Candace's TRAUMATIC Childhood (Phineas and Ferb Theory)

Phineas and Candace’s dad was a horrible, despicable man. No, it's not Doof. I'm serious. Doofenshmirtz is NOT Phineas and Candace's dad, give it a rest.
Everyone has their own theory trying to explain who he is, but I wanna do something more productive: I want to figure out what their father was actually like, what kind of person he was, and I’m telling you… you won’t like what you’ll find out today.

And trust me, Doof does not match this guy’s description at all - so trying to convince yourselves that he is Phineas and Candace’s father, would be an insult to him -, but I do invite you to try and look for someone on the show who does match said description. Let me know your thoughts in the comments and let's jump right into the video!

Let me know your thoughts on this man, and tell me what other topics you'd like me to theorize about or - in general - which topics you'd want me to cover in a video :D

Oh yeah, and the art I used for Phineas and Candace's dad is made by me, tell me if you like it ahah

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Thanks for watching!

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MUSIC FEATURED IN THE VIDEO (in order):

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Fabulous (Instrumental Cover) - Dash the Ghost

[chai]

Additonally, Candace completely accepts Lawrence as her dad. Its particularly clear in the father/daughter race they compete in and when he helps her with driving in its a mud mud mud mud world. There is no "you replaced my 'real' dad" Lawrence IS her dad in her eyes. And its pretty sweet that she has him now.

[trollenburger]

Theory about Candace (and by extension Phineas) having an abusive biological father would further prove the fact that Dr. Doof really isn't that biological father (source: one of PaF's creators), because Dr. Doof would actually go miles to ensure his children's childhood won't be traumatic because he himself had so much traumatic experiences while being child himself.

[icycoolstudios]

In the episode where Candace dreams she busted them, she dreams that Phineas and Ferb get sent to a camp to remove their creativity. In a way this could have been her subconscious interpretation of how her father punished her for her creativity, and that ultimately despite how she wants to bust them, her true self doesn't want that for them.

[vivifoxysdaughterandchild]

Let's be real, if Doofenshmirtz really was Candace and Phineas' biological father, he'd be involved in their lives the same way he's very involved with his actual bio kid, Vanessa. He is just canonically one of the best cartoon fathers and when you put into consideration his many over the top yet depressing backstories, he wouldn't want Candace and Phineas to feel abandoned the same way he did many times as a kid.

[rafaelaveralugo]

I think it's safe to say their biological father doesn't live in Danville anymore. Phineas and the rest of the gang know everybody in Danville personally, and considering how they never ran into their father...

[NicklasZandeVGCP]

I can also see why Candace and Vanessa became friends. Because Vanessa actually understood what it was like to be in an abusive household, as she heard her father talk about how her grandparents were horrible people who skipped out on his birth and forced him to be a lawn gnome and losing the one thing that made him happy, and it's possible she met them and saw first hand how bad they were as human beings, seeing that Candace isn't too different from her father. Both people who want to be loved by the world and demand justice for how they were treated, but letting the abuse from their fathers getting to them.

[gg_Talon]

I find it interesting that while Candace never mentions or seems to actively think about her dad and early childhood, Doof always talks about his. Comedic anecdotes aside, they were both traumatized in similar ways at a similar age, but what probably makes the difference for Candace is her new loving family, and the support she receives from both her parents and her brothers (despite being obsessed with busting them). It makes me think that though she definitely has unresolved issues from her childhood, Candace can definitely heal and have a much better experience in her adulthood :)

[stardust.]

Some more proof of this theory is the few times Phineas lost his cool and yelled angrily at Candance. She completely shut downed which was so unlike her.

[DoubleHCartoonFan]

So many people make dark theories about cartoons because they don’t understand the magic of creativity, but this one actually legit fits into the storyline. Good job with this one, dude!

[ieda]

You gotta analyze Linda too. Haven't you noticed how "emotionless" she is? How she's always looking for new hobbies to fill her life? That's how a broken woman acts, know that well by looking at my own mother after my shit dad died.
Also how she never believes Candace, since their "problem"(the father) is out of the picture and Candace does that due to trauma.

[matthewreynoso]

I never thought of how Phineas and Candace’s biological father left them, but him being abusive as heck makes total sense!

[SunnylandProds]

Of course they’ve said time and time again that they’ll never explore who Phineas and Candace’s bio dad or Ferb’s bio mom were because the whole point was to show a happy blended family, so any speculation on the subject is just that.

[somebodykares]

Maybe Linda's husband had issues with Linda because Linda was once a popstar known as Lindana. Linda did say she gave up being a popstar because of family but she also did say she still did tours so she was not fully out of being a popstar yet and maybe her husband was tired of her constantly accepting tours that took Linda away from home when they promised to start a family together. Plus when we see the flashback of her with Lawrence on their date Linda still kinda dresses like Lindana.

[schris]

That could explain why Phineas had a very well repressed anger, he might have been subjected to the abuse as a baby/toddler, and one of the coping mechanisms at a young age is to repress feelings.
About Candace, the attention seeking, being egotistical are traits inherited from her mom, that's why Linda became a pop idol in the first place. But the abuse amplified Candace'a worst traits, and made her unstable that of course got worse in her teenage years.
About supressing the creativity stuff, I believe as the dad got disenchanted on Linda's pop star lifestyle, he decided to suppress Candace's creativity as a way to avoid that she becomes like her mom, and the stuff she was doing to her brothers is a case of the abused perpetuating the abuse.

[mynameisreallycool]

I've heard theories stating that Linda actually secretly knows about Phineas and Ferb's projects, and she pretends she has no idea about it, which I believe. But they also say that she does this to make Candace continue trying to bust her brothers, and then she writes about Candace being "crazy" in her blogs and gets money for it, or something like that, and which feels like a stretch.
I agree that there's no way that Linda has no idea about it. She has to, because everyone else in the town knows about it, even her own current husband. I think, if Linda actually knows how her sons are doing, her reason for not stopping her kids is because she wants to give Phineas and Ferb the freedom of creativity that her first child never got the luxury of having. She doesn't want her son and step-son to suffer the way their older sister did. And maybe the reason she pretends to not know about it around Candace instead of just saying, "Oh, yeah, I know about that. It's fine." is because it would probably hurt Candace to see that while she wasn't allowed to do these things as a child, her mom willingly and knowingly allows her brothers to do so. Candace will think, "So I didn't get to do all of this, but they do? How's that fair?"
So Linda tries to play the "oblivious parent" sort of role so she can let her kids do what they want while also not letting Candace feel like Linda is favoring the boys over her by giving them the freedom she never got (even though all of this was the father's fault, an argument could be made that Linda allowed it to happen).

[LaurenSherwood-ni]

That also explains a lot about Phineas eases small moments of anger. Yes, everybody does get angry from time to time, especially when we get impatient of something, or someone, however, I do believe that Phineas himself has inherited some of his father’s anger the way that some people expressed their Feelings are a lot of the time passed down from one of their parents. Phineas gets angry one. Candace doesn’t want to do something like get on a bike, and he yells “get on the trike . “.
Or the time when he instead of asking Candace politely to leave because Phineas and Ferb, and their friends got the superheroes he tears her picture up, and yells at her like she is doing something wrong. Luckily Phineas didn’t have to grow up in that kind of environment like Candace, unfortunately had to, but he’s definitely got his anger from his father. It’s a good thing that he is keeping it under control though.

[DoofenSpyroDragon]

Pretty solid theory and a lot of it lines up. I also noticed that Doof and Candace both have unrealized focuses that they both get fixated on, and they both have had rough childhoods.

[aynsleyyost]

Phineasus never met their father and Candace did so that explains why Phineas is happy most of the time and Candace is worried all the time

[santosic]

Since we're on the subject, something I wish the show did more of was highlight the fact that Candace is just as creative as her brother, and has at least some of his intelligence too, which is a detail you noticed too :)

The Best Lazy Day Ever hints at this since she DOES build the dinosaur water slide thing perfectly all on her own, meaning that if she actually did try, she *could* be just as much of a genius as her brothers.

And perhaps the fact that she doesn't isn't just her losing her spark because she got older, but because her father stunted it with his horrible treatment of her, and probably punishing her for expressing that side of her as you said.

Out of all the theories I've seen that are similar in type, (especially for this show alone), this is one that is the most plausible so far because it actually aligns very well with the establish lore and actually helps explain a lot of things!

[tmntgirllife]

My theory was that he was a scientist that did crazy experiments and that it ended his life. Candace saw this and her mom never believed her. And that’s why she was constantly trying to bust her brothers out of fear they would die like their dad